Various Artists - I Am The Center: Private Issue New Age Music In American 1950-1990

[funkaholic]

 

http://lightintheattic.net/releases/9...

http://laraaji.blogspot.com/

V/A - "I Am The Center: Private Issue New Age Music In American 1950-1990"
LITA 107 (2xCD | 2xLP)
Available: October 29, 2013

"Sound created the universe. It wasn't a word. Sound created atoms; sound and light are the original manifesting principles for worlds... A musician sources that primeval, eternal sound, and it comes out as music." -- Constance Demby

Forget everything you know, or think you know, about new age, a genre that has become one of the defining musical-archaeological explorations of the past decade.

"I Am The Center: Private Issue New Age In America, 1950-1990" is the first major anthology to survey the golden age of new age and reveal the unbelievable truth about the genre.

For new age, at its best, is a reverberation of psychedelic music, and great by any standard. This is analog, handmade music communicating soul and spirit, often done on limited means and without commercial potential, self-published and self-distributed. Before it became big business and devolved into the spaced out elevator music we know and loathe today, this was the real thing.

From mathematical musical algorithms to airport murder mysteries to Henry Mancini and Bugs Bunny, the connections to mainstream culture run in curious directions. (Did you know, for instance, that a track from the first modern private press new age album is featured on the Blade Runner soundtrack? It's called "Pompeii, 76 A.D.", and we've got it here.)

"I Am The Center" is a knowing, but never cynical overview that invites listeners at last to the mainspring of a misunderstood genre's greatest lights. Many of the biggest names are present — Iasos, inter-dimentional channeler of "paradise music"; Laraaji, discovered by Brian Eno playing for spare change in Washington Square Park; and the recently famous JD Emmanuel, icon to a new generation of drone, ambient, noise musicians. Call it what you will — before it was anything else, it was new age.

Lovingly conceived and lavishly presented, "I Am The Center" features stunning paintings by the legendary visual artist Gilbert Williams, and liner notes by producer Douglas Mcgowan, who weaves the words and images of the wizards and sorceresses of new age into a prismatic portrait of music that can finally be recognized for what it is: great American folk art.

- 2xCD housed in deluxe tip-on gatefold jacket with book
- 3xLP housed in slip case w/ 3 tip-on jackets, download card and book
- Both formats with notes by Douglas Mcgowan featuring interviews with artists and includes rare archive photos.
- Artwork by Gilbert Williams and Janaia Donaldson.
- 2 unreleased tracks, 7 others previously only on cassette
- Vinyl cut by John Golden. Pressed at RTI.
- Remastered from original sources at 24 bit/ 96 kHz

Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff / Thomas De Hartmann – The Struggle Of The Magicians Part Three 3:37 Gail Laughton – Pompeii 76 A.D. 2:22 Nesta Kerin Crain – Gongs In The Rain 1:47 Wilburn Burchette* – Witch's Will 4:57 Iasos – Formentera Sunset Clouds 4:51 Steven Halpern – Seventh Chakra Keynote B (Violet) 3:40 Joel Andrews – Seraphic Borealis 12:37 Constance Demby – Om Mani Padme Hum 9:51 Daniel Emmanuel – Arabian Fantasy 2:34 Don Slepian – Awakening (Excerpt) 5:18 Laraaji – Unicorns In Paradise (Excerpt) 5:14 Peter Davison – Glide V 6:21 Joanna Brouk – Lifting Off 2:58 Michael Stearns – As The Earth Kissed The Moon (Excerpt) 7:38 Aeoliah – Tien Fu: Heaven's Gate (Excerpt) 11:33 Daniel Kobialka – Blue Spirals 10:08 Larkin – Two Souls Dance 13:18 Judith Tripp – Li Sun 6:39 Mark Banning – Lunar Eclipse (Excerpt) 9:17 Alice Damon – Waterfall Winds 7:59

[Salvatorin]

Call it what you will — before it was anything else, it was new age.

well, not really, it was actually avant garde, musique concrete, early synthesis, minimalism, etc. before it was necessarily associated with post-hippy psychedelic spiritual stuff. But I love laraaji and new age music anyhow.

[Salvatorin]

lol you could just walk down to your local goodwill and search a bin of tapes and you'll probably find just as much new age for $3

[beerwolf]

I've been stroking my chin and thinking of buying this on vinyl, simply because I love the title, artwork and description of the music. Perhaps I should apply the brakes and listen first!

[hello spiral]

Just get it Beerwolf!

 

I bought this for myself with birthday money last weekend (http://forum.watmm.com/topic/169-recent-purchases-thread/?p=2096092)

 

hasn't been off my speakers since. (I was also considering buying it on vinyl when I found it in Sister Ray).

 

Really fucking great collection.

[beerwolf]

Yeah it looks just like my cup of tea. I might get the reissue of Sunn O))) Black One as well, just to readdress the balance!

[Guest]

Boy this sounds lush..